Piano Birthday Cake

Someone in the house is turning 15 this weekend... celebrations was brought forward by one week (coz Mom will be busy next week...with my sister's visit) 'Fake Birthday' according to her... and she is 'expecting' another round of cake and presents... cheeky!! hmmm... should have make her Fake Cake, and gave her Fake presents.. why didn't I think of that...

Our little girl (oh she is not so little anymore... she is slightly taller then me)  our chatter box, our 'kaypoh' is another year older...

Let me tell you a story... actually there were few stories of her that makes our hearts... goes Ba-dee-Boom... . 

...our Sweetie-pie... our Livewire..

I wished I could take her place instead  ... when she had Pneumonia and was hospitalised for a week at the tender age of 2. We just came back from Cameron Highland, she caught a cold and couldn't shake it off. ...But she made no fuss... walked into the X-ray room all on her own, going about with Intravenous/ needle inserted 24-7 in her tiny hand... 

Being a playful child.. and hide and seek was one of her favourite games. We were shopping for ties (well, H was...) , she hid between  the Tie displays and when she had enough.. she emerged, and spooked a lady shopper. Poor lady... her heart fell with a loud thud onto the floor... I wanted to tell her off... but she was only 3.

Our "nightmare weekend window shopping" in IKEA, Damansara.
We were making our way towards check out counter through  Market Hall ... being a playful 5 year old, she decided to play 'Catch up with me...' weaving in and out of the shelves... trying to stay ahead of us... she just took one turn and she was lost among the shelves...

Took us a couple of minutes to realise that she was no where to be seen...
PANIC!!! ... I back tracked  and H went running towards check out counters... Finally, I found her sobbing... not far from where we 'lost' her...

Oh yes... she did it again....age 14+ ~ lost in Paris 

And now her father is thinking twice... thrice... zillion times of letting her go on to her next adventure joining 'World Challenge'... going to the other side of the world ... at least 30 hours flight away.

But my girl with gorgeous smile has a BIG heart... would do anything and give her all to help others.
She recently participated in 'Cancer Council Relay For Life~ WA', 24 hour running for a good course...
I almost *faint* when she told me of how many laps she did ... 125 laps x 400m run= 50km (122 laps on her own+3 last laps with the group and we joined in)...  plus she did not sleep and had been running and helping round the clock...
The Relay meant a lot to her.. as she lost someone close to her, someone she loved, someone who loved her and would spoiled her rotten, if not for Lung Cancer... her Grandmother whom she called NaNai.

Happy 15^th Birthday…

My sweet beautiful girl

May HE bless you always....

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Recipe (serve 6-8)

(tweaked and adapted from Janelle Bloom)

  

125g butter at room temperature

1/2 cup caster sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

2 eggs

2 cups of Cake Flour (Lighthouse Brand)

2/3 cup milk 

1 box Wilton White Fondant

1 black Wilton Black food colouring

1 bottle of apricot jam

Decoration ~ Royal Icing 

1. Pre-heat oven to 170C. Grease and line base and side of a 22cm round spring form cake pan. 
2. Beat the butter and sugar until pale and creamy. 
3. Add egg one at a time and continue to beat. 
4. Remove bowl from the mixer and add in flour and milk and mix well. 
5. Pour the cake batter into the cakepan  and bake for 45-50 minutes depending on your oven or until the skewer comes out clean. 
6. Stand the cake for 5 minutes and remove from pan onto cool rack. 
7. Leave it to completely cool before cutting the cake into shape.
8. Repeat for second cake

Fondant ~ knead and mix the food colouring until the desired colour is achieved. Lay the fondant according to the instruction on the box. Remember to set aside some white fondant for keyboard and music book.

Brush the cakes with apricot jam, around, in between cakes and the top surface. Gently lay the fondant onto the cake and cut off the excess.

Note : 2 cakes are needed to make the Piano cake. 
I should have bake Chocolate Cake instead... Black Fondant on Butter Cakes is not applealing at all when sliced ... therefore no photos will be included 

Raspberries, Lemon and Olive Oil Teacake

Dare I say it... that Autumn is finally here? ... with Winter, less than a month away? 
Oh  yes...We've been experiencing a very mild Autumn this year, and some of the days/nights... feels like Summer was trying to make a comeback..... but the late sunrise and early sunsets, just reassures me that it isn't so...

... and watching my lemons turning yellow, one by one... just confirmed that Autumn is definitely here. And it's time for me to harvest my lemons... and get the plant ready for the next season.
With a box of raspberries that was sitting pretty in my freezer...plus I had the itch to bake, lemon and raspberries would make a perfect pair... I searched the net for some good recipe... and came across Martha Stewart's Ligurian Lemon Cake. 

Had a quick read... Oh yes! its manageable...but I was hesitant to spread the cake with meringue...

why?...

...because it spells DISASTER...I am not good in either spreading anything on the cake or do a fancy piping onto cakes... plus it will be too super... duper...  sweet.. much to my kids' delight ... ....definitely not mine!!

Recipe serve 4-6

(adapted and tweaked fr Martha Stewart) 

1 ¾ cups Cake Flour (lighthouse brand)

1 cup caster sugar

2/3 cup plus 7 tablespoon olive oil

Zest of 2 lemons

4 large eggs at room temperature

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

3 tablespoon milk at room temperature

1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries

1. Pre-heat oven to 180C. 
2. Spray some olive oil onto the baking pan. 
3. In a large mixing bowl, rub the sugar and lemon zest until the sugar feels moist. 
4. Add in eggs, using whisk attachment, whisk until the mixture is pale and thick. 
5. Lower the speed, add in milk then flour, olive oil and lemon juice. 
6. Mix until all the ingredients is well blended. 
7. Pour one third of the batter into the baking pan, arrange raspberries on top of the batter. Repeat, and finish it off with the last layer of batter just covering the raspberries.
8. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until the skewer comes out clean. 
9. Remove and leave it to cool on the wire rack before serving.

Malaysian ~ Nyonya Kari Kapitan/ Nyonya Kapitan Chicken Curry

The BAD....

This post was scheduled to be "Published' last week, but BLOGGER decided to play up.  

I admit that I am not 'well versed' in computing... all those jargons scares me. Changes, updates, upgrades in softwares freaked me out as I feel that 'something' is lurking and waiting to pounce on me anytime. 

It took me awhile, to finally clicked on that 'Upgrade to Blogger New Interface'... but the story did not end there!. I soon found out that my current IE does not support the new Blogger format, hence I reluctantly made my migration to Google Chrome. 

I was happy for awhile.. discovering the new format, happily typing with my 2 fingers for this post, insert photos....clicked on 'SAVE' button, with the intention to review before 'Posting' the next day.... 

That 'Something' did pounce on me... I returned the next day to review before clicking on the 'PUBLISH' button... to my horror... everything was GONE!!! what's left was just the title!!! 
I am clueless to what did happen... was it me or Blogger?

My question to all my Blogger friends/experts out there... does this sounds familiar and has it happened to you too? I am in the dark... appreciate if  someone could enlightened me on what is going on with BLOGGER new Format.
Now that's out of my chest....

The FOOD...
After few posts on International food... We need some spice and chillies in our weekly diet... I am back with our favourite Nyonya Cuisine ~ Kari Kapitan...
Kapitan is a Nyonya-Malay word for Captain... so Kari Kapitan... is loosely translated Captain's curry. 
Preparations prior to any Nyonya dishes is always laborious... but the end result is always satisfying... almost finger licking good 

On to my next ...

The GOOD...

I'm sure that almost 90% of Food Bloggers must have heard or submitted at least one photograph to either FoodGawker or Tastespotting... right? 

There is a new website that you could submit your gorgeous, mouthwatering photos to ... 

Its called ...

RecipeNewz.com. 

Thanks Elana  of Cooking Rookie for inviting me to join in the fun.

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Recipe (serve 4-6)

(adapted and 'tweaked' from Nyonya Flavours)

1 kg drumsticks

1 tablespoon turmeric powder

Salt

Oil for deep frying

250ml coconut milk

1 tablespoon finely shredded kaffir lime leaves

1 tablespoon brown sugar

2 tablespoon lime juice

Spice Paste

10 shallots

1 big brown onion

2 cloves of garlic

2 cm ginger

2 cm galangal

1 cm turmeric (fresh or frozen)

3 candlenuts

2 stalks of lemongrass

15 dried chillies – soaked

20g Maggi belacan granules

¼ cup of oil

1. Marinade chicken pieces with turmeric powder and salt for at least 2 hours (or overnight if time permits). 
2. Deep fry the chicken pieces until golden. 
3. Dish out onto the kitchen paper and put aside. 
4. Blend all the ingredients in the ‘spice’ list into a fine paste. 
5. Heat about 3 tablespoon of oil in a wok and sauté the spice until its fragrant and the oil ‘split’. 
6. Add in chicken and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes. 
7. Add coconut milk, kaffir lime leaves and brown sugar. 
8. Season to taste. 
9. Simmer for at least 10 minutes or until the chicken is tender. 
10. Add lime juice and mix well. 
11. Garnish with golden fried shallots. Serve with steam rice